The Special Responsibility of Government Lawyers and the Iraq Inquiry

• Autores: Matthew Windsor
• Localización: British year book of international law, ISSN 0068-2691, Nº 87, 2017 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Symposium on the Iraq Inquiry), págs. 159-176
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1093/bybil/bry025
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• Resumen

  • The United Kingdom House of Commons endorsed the decision to invade and occupy Iraq on 18 March 2003. That morning, Elizabeth Wilmshurst—a deputy legal adviser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)—requested early retirement after almost 30 years of public service, because she regarded the intervention as unlawful without a United Nations Security Council resolution explicitly authorising the use of force. Despite her well-received testimony before the Iraq Inquiry,1 the Report of the Inquiry left the story of Wilmshurst’s departure on the cutting room floor. With her decision to speak law to power erased from the official record, international law’s heroine had been reduced to a bit part.

    The absence of discussion of Wilmshurst’s departure...